Residents of three Erie Independence House properties say they can finally breathe a little easier after an 11th-hour agreement stopped the buildings from going to the Erie County upset tax sale.<\/p>\n
The agreement, reached late last week, included a consent motion, a judge’s order and the promise of new management agreement involving Housing and Neighborhood Development Service, a nonprofit commonly known as HANDS.<\/p>\n
The three properties are located on West 5th Street, West 2nd Street and McClelland Avenue. About 35 residents live in the buildings, which provide housing specifically designed for people with physical disabilities.<\/p>\n
Erie News Now first reported on the residents’ situation in early August, when unpaid bills, unpaid vendors and unpaid property taxes had created uncertainty about the future of the homes, and set the properties on a path to the tax sale.<\/p>\n
For resident Laura Van Volkenburg, the possibility of having to move was especially stressful.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had my parents on standby in case I had to move all of the sudden. My support coordinator had to be notified and let them be on notice in case I had to move, but now I feel like I \u2014 hey, I can breathe for the first time in a while,\u201d she said smiling.<\/p>\n
Under the new management agreement, HANDS, with assistance from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, will develop an operations and financial plan aimed at resolving delinquent accounts, paying back taxes and ensuring the properties have adequate staffing and maintenance resources.<\/p>\n
Van Volkenburg said she remains cautious, but is encouraged by the change.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am very hopeful at this point, still a little cautious because I don’t know this group or anything, but very hopeful.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Laura had a literal laundry list of repairs and improvements she hope will be addressed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to get some new washing and drying machines, ones that don’t break down all the time. I know we’re currently gonna be getting our door fixed soon because that’s been broken. I know a couple of the apartments have problems with their showers that need to be fixed.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also said a return to the availability of overnight care would be helpful for some of the residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cOvernight care would be a nice thing for some people, I know that. It’s not something I need, but I know a few people here need that, that would be cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
The specialized accessibility in the Erie Independence House apartments is one of the reasons residents really wanted to remain in their homes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis building’s geared toward the physically disabled, the way our light switches are set up, our outlets and the apartment itself, it’s great and I would hate to leave this place because of that,\u201d Van Volkenburg said.<\/p>\n
The new agreement means Van Volkenburg and the other residents will not have to leave their homes.<\/p>\n
Erie News Now has reached out to HANDS and HUD for additional details about their plans for the properties and is awaiting a response.<\/p>\n
For now, residents who spent months worrying about whether they would be displaced say they are feeling much more hopeful about their future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents of three Erie Independence House properties say they can finally breathe a little easier after an 11th-hour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[2347,136,138,110404,137,15875,122337,25102,2437,6725,118062,122338,110405],"class_list":["post-295882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-community-support","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-independence-house","tag-erie-news","tag-hands","tag-housing-for-disabled","tag-hud","tag-maintenance","tag-nonprofit","tag-property-management","tag-resident-relief","tag-tax-sale"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}